Overwhelm the Senses
by ashestodusters
Summary: Five things John learnt about his flatmate in their first year living together, and the one he already knew. A series of one-shots exploring their growing friendship.
1. Out of Sight

John remembered the earliest he ever got dragged out of bed for a case after getting to sleep at a reasonable hour was when Lestrade called with an urgent voice at 2:30am. Sherlock had just finished an equally taxing case earlier that day and, having gone without rest for his usual ridiculous amount of time, had consumed a vast amount of food before collapsing in bed without even bothering to change. So when the consulting detective had failed to be roused by his phone Lestrade had called John instead.

So here John was, at 2:30 in the morning, staring at Sherlock's sleeping form and debating whether or not to wake the obviously exhausted man. In the end a further call from Lestrade decided for him as the killer struck again for the third time that night.

"Sherlock?" John queried softly as he edged into Sherlock's strangely neat and tidy room, which never failed to confuse John considering the state of the rest of the flat. Perhaps his room, his sanctuary, was a place of calm for him, designed to be empty enough to slow his incredible mind.

The man on the bed stirred gently at John's voice but didn't wake. Hesitantly, John crept in and leaned over to give Sherlock's shoulder a light shake.

"Sherlock, I'm sorry but Lestrade needs you."

"Hmm?" Slowly Sherlock's eyes blinked open and he looked around confusedly until his slightly disorientated gaze alighted on his flatmate in the doorway.

"I did knock, but you were out of it," John hurriedly added as he took in the view, realising that for perhaps the first time since he moved in with Sherlock that he was seeing the younger man when he looked vulnerable, sleepy and subdued, his brain quiet.

"One minute." The mumbled reply was all John needed and he left the room as soundlessly as possible pulling the door smoothly closed behind him. A few minutes later a still sleepy Sherlock stumbled, dressed in fresh clothes, from his room and headed towards the stairs. John hurriedly followed seeing how tired and unsteady the detective looked on his feet, now regretting waking him for fear that he wouldn't be much use, opening the door whilst Sherlock pulled his signature coat on and getting into the taxi he'd called a few minutes before.

Looking somewhat more awake, perhaps the result of the brisk cold night air, the detective followed John into the vehicle and rested his head against the window; but instead of looking out Sherlock's eyes drifted shut, which only furthered John's concern as Sherlock seemingly dozed during the taxi ride. The detective never dozed in taxis; he preferred to observe the world.

"Are you alright Sherlock?" For once John had no right to complain about his sleeping habits; after all he had been the one to wake the detective in the first place.

"I will be if they have coffee." Letting the explanation pass for the time being, although he was still suspicious, John settled back into his seat and allowed Sherlock the peace and quiet he needed. Sherlock, on the other hand, was doing everything in his power not to show John how dizzy and nauseous he was feeling.

By the time the cab pulled to a stop Sherlock had nearly reached his limit and was glad for the fresh air, but it did nothing to abate the dizziness and behind him he heard John once again beginning to express his concerns.

"I'm just tired John, go on ahead I'll be right behind you." Sherlock did exactly that, glad John hadn't questioned the unusual statement as it meant he could follow John's footsteps, ensuring that he wouldn't trip over anything.

"Ah, Sherlock! Sorry about the sudden call." An equally sleepy Lestrade's voice carried over the crime scene as the pair slowly approached, one steady, one not so. Immediately Lestrade's look turned to one of concern, his eyes fixed on Sherlock's bleary and unfocused gaze.

"S'ok." All eyes abruptly turned at Sherlock's single syllable, barely articulate, answer, just in time to see the detective squint and sway. Lestrade reached Sherlock's side at about the same time as John as the younger detective reached up to rub his eyes.

It took a moment, but Lestrade's mind swiftly recalled a key piece of information, his stare widened to one of understanding as Sherlock tried to focus on him, suddenly glad he had taken to carrying spares years ago in case Sherlock ever forgot and had never fallen out of the habit. Lestrade pulled Sherlock away from John, who had started checking Sherlock over for something more serious than was actually the case, ignoring the doctor's complaints. With his hand coming up to steady Sherlock, Lestrade guided the young genius to rest against a wall.

"Why did you come without them?" Lestrade asked his tone sharp but concerned.

"Forgot, didn't want to waste time going back for them, John can see just fine." Sherlock's reply was mumbled, almost sheepish, but spoke volumes about his determination to catch the killer before anyone else got hurt, even at his own expense judging by the pallor of his skin.

"Oh Sherlock," Lestrade sighed in a mixture of fondness and exasperation, "luckily for you I happen to keep an old pair around just in case." A small, relieved smile lit up Sherlock's face, visible only to them.

"Thanks Greg." Lestrade smiled back. Sherlock always remembered his name of course, but rarely used it, preferring to keep the aloof façade he portrayed to the police as a way of separating 'Greg' the friend from 'Lestrade' the colleague. Hearing shuffling behind them caused both men to drop their smiles and pull back from each other.

"I'm sorry, but what's going on?" Both men turned, coming face to face with the confused expression of John Watson, eyes still concernedly raking over Sherlock's lanky form.

"Idiot here forgot his contacts." John frowned, clearly not understanding. Lestrade did as well, eyes jumping between John's confused expression and Sherlock's embarrassed one, he had assumed John knew.

"Contacts? Sherlock was does he mean?" Heaving a sigh, Sherlock decided he might as well get this little secret out in the open, John deserved that at least for putting up with him.

"I'm long sighted John, I wear contact lenses." John's jaw dropped as he stared at his flatmate of several months. He was a trained medical professional, how had he missed this?

"So when Lestrade says he has a spare pair?"

"He means glasses," Sherlock confirmed. John's eyes connected with Sherlock's and now he recognised the bleary look for what it was, not tiredness or a symptom of an unknown illness, but a literal inability to focus on anything. During their brief conversation Lestrade had been rummaging through his pockets until, with a flourish and a small 'aha', he produced a pair of glasses and handed them to the younger detective who reluctantly accepted the offering.

Slipping the lenses on Sherlock, who John would shamelessly admit suited the glasses look surprisingly well, blinked a couple of times to clear the residual dizziness before pushing off the wall that had been supporting him for the past couple of minutes, brushing past shocked onlookers.

"Well, let's get this over with then Lestrade, John."

With Sherlock's sharp eyes now ready to take in every detail, the killer didn't stand a chance.

Three hours later with the case closed and the killer in handcuffs Sherlock, following a brief conversation with Lestrade, headed back towards John and the waiting taxi, his finger gently pushing the frames up his nose from where they had slipped down during the case.

"Are you keeping those?" John asked as the taxi pulled away, nodding towards the glasses.

"No, I'll drop them back to Lestrade tomorrow," Sherlock replied, "sometimes him having them comes in useful."

"Like tonight," John quipped.

"Yes," Sherlock agreed, "like tonight."

John released a thoughtful hum, but said nothing more on the subject for which Sherlock was grateful. It wasn't that he hated glasses; it was more that they gave criminals a potential weakness to use against him during a chase or confrontation.

Although, Sherlock supposed, he shouldn't have been surprised that when he next forgot his contacts in the middle of the night, John hurriedly pulled a spare set of contact lenses out of his pocket with a shrug and a gentle smile.


	2. Out of Touch

They had been at it for what felt like days, but in reality John knew it had only been hours. His vision was beginning to blur, his hand cramping.

He hated paperwork.

By the looks of it, the other two men crowded into Lestrade's office were similarly unimpressed with the sheer volume of forms and reports they were being required to fill out in triplicate for the official police records. Sherlock, as he always did after the end of a case, looked exhausted despite having slept for nearly ten hours, and appeared to be keeping himself awake through sheer determination and stubbornness alone.

As much as he could be a nightmare to work with though, John knew that Lestrade appreciated Sherlock's dedication to correct procedure after a case was closed, even if it meant in filling in extra forms because of Sherlock's unique working relationship with the police service.

As such, the post-case paperwork slog was quickly becoming alarmingly familiar to John. With the criminal caught the trio would go their separate ways to their beds, sleep for a ridiculously long time, and then meet back in Lestrade's office the following day to tackle the endless reports and evidence forms before the details began to slip away from them.

They worked in companionable silence, only broken by the slurping of teas (or coffee in Sherlock's case when he was feeling especially run down) and the scratching of pens, oblivious to the outside world.

John shifted, trying to stretch his back which was already aching terribly when Sherlock's fingers cramped and slipped. The young detective let out a curse, (John had discovered that Sherlock rarely cursed, but when he did he was always tired), shaking his hand out and apparently giving it up as a lost cause because to John's surprise his simply swapped the pen to his left hand and carried on.

So, Sherlock was ambidextrous. Surprising, perhaps, but not unexpected. They had been caught in many a situation where the ability to use his left hand as flexibly as his right would have helped John massively in escaping various situations, being able to pick locks with both hands was a skill he was still learning. So really, Sherlock's ability to do so shouldn't have come as such a shock because it only made sense in his chosen career that Sherlock applied the same focus to his escapology as he did to his deductions.

No, what was surprising, John grasped after a moment, was something he had unconsciously observed himself.

Medical training or no, it was immediately clear from Sherlock's posture, and the speed and fluidity of his writing, that he actually preferred writing this way. Therefore, John deduced, (and oh grief he was starting to pick up Sherlock's terminology), Sherlock was naturally left-handed.

Why then, did he always pick up the pen with his right? There was no way that Sherlock would do it to 'fit in', he hardly cared about being different in everything else, why would this matter? Unless, John realised, he had been taught to do so from a young age and it had become a long engrained habit.

"John?" Sherlock's questioning voice drew him out of his thoughts and to his embarrassment John noticed that both Sherlock and Lestrade had stopped working and were giving him a worried look. He also noticed that he had probably been staring at his flatmate for the last few minutes.

"Yeah, sorry," John shook his head to clear his thoughts, "just noticed something odd."

"Odd?" This time it was Lestrade that spoke up. Beside him, Sherlock frowned.

"It's nothing important," John replied trying to turn his attention back to the forms.

"It was clearly enough to distract you from these admittedly dull forms for several minutes," Sherlock observed simply, "please do share, if only to distract us from the boredom." Lestrade smirked at the comment.

"It's just," John hesitated before deciding to power through, "it's just that you're left-handed. I'd never noticed before."

Sherlock's mouth formed a small 'oh' as his eyes flitted between the pen held loosely in his left hand and John.

"Only," John continued after a pause, "you always use your right. I was trying to work out why and must have spaced out for a bit."

Slowly, carefully, Sherlock laid the pen down.

"No one's ever noticed before," he muttered quietly as he slowly flexed the fingers of his left hand, "how could you tell?" His inquisitive gaze met John's, he didn't look upset, just intrigued.

"Your posture," John replied as his brain caught up with the conversation, "you relaxed unconsciously, and your writing was faster and smoother than usual."

"Hmm," Sherlock's mouth quirked up, "I'm impressed John, it seems as though you're picking up some deductive abilities of your own." It seemed that for Sherlock at least that was the end of the conversation because he picked up the pen again and was about to go back to scrawling the details of the case when John blurted out.

"I couldn't work out _why_ though." Sherlock froze, frowned again, put the pen back down.

"Sorry?" Lestrade, who had at this moment been content to observe the discussion in silence, quietly filing away this new knowledge of his younger colleague, suddenly spoke up.

"Why do you insist on using your right hand to write when it's clear you aren't comfortable doing so?" John aimed his question at Sherlock, who seemed to have been caught off-guard by it.

"Left-handedness was not encouraged at school," Sherlock finally murmured, his gaze resting firmly on his hand at the pen.

"Not encouraged?" John prompted and finally Sherlock looked up at him, eyes unreadable.

"No," Sherlock's voice remained quiet, almost timid, "it tended to smudge the ink." The detective fell silent, his body language was screaming for them to stop questioning.

"Did they force you to switch hands?" Lestrade asked, his voice had also softened to the tone he often used with victims. Sherlock recognised it immediately and took offence.

"I wasn't abused _inspector_ ," he spat, "if that's what you're getting at."

"I didn't suggest that you were." Lestrade shot back calmly, a concerned frown on his face.

"I just… struggled to comprehend emotional intent, facial expressions, vocal intonation, body language at that age," Sherlock admitted, a blush rising on his cheeks, "they didn't mean for me to change if it was uncomfortable, I see that now, they just wanted to help me ensure I presented my work well. I misread the situation, observed that of my twenty-four classmates I was the only one writing with my left hand and made a deduction. So no, Lestrade, I wasn't abused, I just misunderstood."

Sherlock's voice trailed off, his eyes once again fixed on the table in front of him. Suddenly John recognised that they had also misread the situation. Sherlock hadn't closed up because he was afraid, but because he was ashamed, embarrassed even, to admit a weakness, a mistake.

"You were just a child Sherlock," John said softly, seeing the detective beginning to clam up in the ensuing silence, "you don't need to keep doing it, you know, not if it's more comfortable to write left-handed, we're not going to judge you and you don't need to be embarrassed, you're allowed to make mistakes, no one's perfect."

"You are." The words slipped out and hung heavily between them as Sherlock realised he had spoken aloud. "Sorry, ignore me, no idea why I said that. So, forms?"

John saw through Sherlock's attempt at distraction for what it was.

"No, it's fine," he said softly. Sherlock paused.

"It is?" Sherlock sounded confused and hopeful at the same time.

"Yes, it is, good even," John replied calmly, watching at Sherlock attempted to process the words.

"Really?" Sherlock asked tentatively.

"Really," John confirmed before turning back to the long-forgotten paperwork. Lestrade thankfully took his signal and did the same, allowing Sherlock time to absorb the words.

They finished the paperwork quickly and quietly, as though nothing had happened, as though Sherlock hadn't had an emotional revelation and they didn't bring it up again, not even when they next sat down together after a case and Sherlock unconsciously picked up the pen in his left hand, clicked it on, and started writing.

But over the table, John and Lestrade both spotted, glanced at each other, and smiled.


End file.
